Fighting Oppression: Julius Caesar Socratic Seminar Part I
Renee Jackson and I have been planning for a Socratic Seminar at the end of the Julius Caesar unit that will focus on the following essential questions:
“Is violence an effective means to resolve political oppression?”
Sub-questions:
• Are there other methods?
• Are they effective?
In order to prepare for this, I gathered some resources dealing with the theme of oppression, violence and non-violent forms of activism. Here are the links to these resources:
- Seven Famous Slave Revolts from History.com
- Bad to the Bone: The Psychology of Violence from Psychology Today
- TEDTalk: War Stories
- TEDTalk: The Road to Peace
- TEDTalk: Fighting with Non-Violence
- TEDTalk: A Civil Response to Violence
- TEDTalk: A Saudi Woman Who Dared to Drive
- TEDTalk: How to Topple a Dictator
These were the skills on which we wanted to focus for the unit:
• Quote Integration
• Gist statements and in-context vocabulary
• Synthesis of multiple sources
• Speaking and listening skills that require students to provide textual evidence
To this end, we decided to have students do a close reading and annotate non-fiction texts dealing with the essential questions as they read Casesar. I created a “cover sheet” for each of the sources (see below). These texts will be kept and utilized for the Socratic discussion, which we want to be evidence-based. More on this process as it develops.
Learning Lab Consulting 